


Death is an Illusion

by Sara_Ellison



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:41:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sara_Ellison/pseuds/Sara_Ellison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there was one person who could spot deception, surely it was the master of illusions herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death is an Illusion

Michelle stood in the corner of the room, as still as she could. She wasn't sure whether he would be able to hear any noise she made, but he'd already shown that he could shatter her illusions with no aid other than his own extraordinary willpower. That wasn't an ability, it was simply strength of mind.

She wasn't stupid. She had known, when she accepted the assignment, that it was dangerous. _He_ was dangerous. And after the first time, when she'd been stupid enough to be caught within arm's reach of him...well, she considered herself lucky that he was too disconcerted by the extent of his injuries to consider violence. So she was more careful now.

Sylar was upset, she'd seen that much as soon as he spoke. "I can't make it move," he'd said, sounding despondent. He ignored the plate of food she placed in front of him, and the gentle hand she laid on his arm. "That cup. I used to be able to make things move with my mind."

Of course he was upset, he was only human again. And that was dangerous, in an already unstable mind. She moved away from him, carefully, splitting off an image for him that was a lot more casual than she felt. "Thanks for making breakfast, Michelle, you're a real sport," she quipped, as her image sat down across from him, slouching against the table.

"I can't freeze anything, I can't move things, what happened to them?" he demanded. He was still staring at the illusion as she moved further away. Good.

"Uh, they must have disappeared with your injuries?" she had her illusion say, slightly mocking. She knew perfectly well that's not what happened, not really, but she wasn't about to tell him that. It was half-true, anyway.

"I thought you said you were taking care of me," he snarled. Angry. Good. If he was emotionally compromised, he'd be much less likely to be able to summon the willpower to see where she really was.

"I'm sorry," the other Michelle said sarcastically. "Uh, are you breathing? No collapsed lung, no infection from the wound?"

He smacked the tabletop and cringed at once, in pain. "Everything," he bit out, "that I've been working for, everything that I had, it's gone."

Michelle tried a different tack. "Listen, the people I work for, they're gonna make sure you get better," she said. Conciliatory, not deflecting. "You're back's already healed, it's just your chest we're worried about! And when that heals..." She tried a comforting smile on the illusion. "You'll be able to reaquire your powers." He relaxed a little at that, a flicker of hope visible for just a moment. "With my help, of course." She let him see confidence on her face.

"You?" He looked disdainful. "How are you gonna help?" He shoved the plate across the table at her, and the illusion-Michelle started. "You gonna make me some more eggs?"

"By making it easy," she said, and stood up, tossing her hair. "By making it fun. I can take you anywhere you wanna go. Paris, London...how 'bout Japan?" He looked skeptical, and she tried a different angle. She let a note of desperate worry creep into the illusion's face. "I can be anyone you want me to be."

The illusion morphed into a heavily-painted geisha in tight silk robes. "If your fantasy is exotic..." she prompted suggestively. He wasn't buying it, so she let that one vanish, replaced by two more women behind him--blonde twins with big breasts, in matching tight minidresses. "Or more run-of the mill," she had them say in unison as they bent over him, caressing his shoulders. He raised an eyebrow at that--interested, she read, but still hesitant. She got rid of them, too, and tried something else, something she knew most people wanted but few would admit.

"Or something more familiar, if that's what you're into," the illusory Sylar purred, standing in front of the real one. The glance Sylar cast over his double was quietly fiery. Michelle didn't know what, exactly, he wanted to do to himself, and she wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

She realized she'd allowed herself to move too close to the illusion. She backed away, hastily, and replaced the vision of herself standing at the foot of the table. Sylar exhaled sharply. "Don't you see?" she cajoled, "I can help you!" The illusion took a step toward him while she continued to move away, squeezing herself into a corner of the shack. "We were meant to do this together."

He stood up then, agonizingly, levering his broken body out of the chair. The pain evident in his movements almost masked the deception in his body language as he moved toward her. His eyes were closed-off, betraying nothing, and that alone would have been enough to tell her there was something to betray. He smiled at her, and it made a chill run up her spine, the way it failed to reach his eyes. "I underestimated you," he said softly. "You really are extraordinary." He reached out a hand and gently brushed her hair away from her face. He moved toward her as though he were going to kiss her, and the illusion smiled up at him, while his other hand reached for the cup on the table. He growled, "Just like me," and swung the cup hard into the illusion's skull. Michelle was glad she'd backed so far away; she didn't like being splashed with blood, even if it was imaginary blood.

The illusion shuddered and twitched on the floor, gasping in pain. Emotions flickered across her face: hurt, that he'd betrayed her after she'd helped him so much; anger at herself for letting him betray her; fear of what he was going to do, and simply of death. Michelle hoped she wasn't hamming it up too much, and had to suppress a giggle at that--of course it wasn't too much. She was an expert, after all; she never would have gotten this far if she didn't know how to make a realistic illusion.

"You were right," Sylar was saying, almost purring. "I am going to get my abilities back. Starting with yours." She watched, slightly sickened, as he seized a sharp shard of ceramic and dug it into the flesh of her scalp. She let the blood well up around his crude blade, quickly--head wounds bleed a lot, she knew. The illusory body shuddered again and gave a ragged, rattling exhalation, then lay still. He sat back and frowned. It looked like he was waiting for something.

Of course. He assumed that her usual appearance wasn't what she really looked like. She let the body dissolve, unevenly, taking care that it looked the way it had when he'd shattered her Maui projection. In place of the pretty redhead with a head wound, she created an overweight, plain-faced, frizzy-haired brunette with a head wound. Fat and ugly, that should satisfy his imagination, and indeed he went right back to work, covering his hands with illusory blood.

He apparently found what he was looking for somewhere on her brain, because it was only a short time later that he stood, still shaky from his injuries and sweating with exertion. "So this is what you really look like," he snarled at the body. "So silly, trying to be something that you're not." He grabbed the dishtowel she'd used as a potholder earlier, and rubbed his hands with it, trying to remove the worst of the gore. Michelle let some imaginary bits of brain stay stuck under his fingernails, just to mess with him. "Well, Michelle, or Candace, or whoever you are," he continued. Talking to a dead body; he must be really lonely, Michelle thought, amused. "It wasn't all for nothing. Thanks to you, I'll be going back to Maui now." He tossed the bloodstained rag on top of the corpse, smirking, then shut his eyes, breathing deeply.

She could have laughed out loud at the look on his face when he opened his eyes to the continued view of the interior of the shack. He looked nervously embarrassed, as though he'd just done something humiliating and was desperately hoping no one noticed. "London," he muttered. She could have helped him out and done it for him, but sooner or later he would try to create an illusion without telling her first, and the game would be up. Better to let him think he'd failed. Better to watch him squirm. "Japan," he said, sounding desperate, then shouted it again, and fell against the table in pain as the stitches in his chest pulled against newly-healed flesh. "It's not working," he gasped to no one, and Michelle rolled her eyes, hidden. "I don't have it. The power... _what's wrong with me?_ "

 _Many, many things_ , Michelle thought. Sylar staggered towards the door, smacking the flimsy screen aside. She was surprised to find herself concerned for him, hoping he wouldn't tear his stitches and die alone in the jungle, as he stumbled outside. She shrugged to herself. It wasn't her problem any more.

She cast a glance over the body on the floor, its bleeding slowed now; the shattered cup, half of it embedded in the illusion's skull; the puddles of imaginary blood, congealing in the warm air; and filed it all away in the back of her mind as something to remember. The illusion would be maintained until everyone who remembered she had been there, who might come to check, would have long forgotten. The Company would be so annoyed at her for allowing Sylar to escape; much better just to let everyone think she was dead, and to take on a new appearance, a new life.

Whistling silently, she strode out of the shack and hopped in her car. Invisibly, she started the engine and drove down the dirt track towards civilization. She passed Sylar, curled in the fetal position beside the road, panting, and tossed him a jaunty wave that he couldn't see.


End file.
